


Two Out Of Three

by LibKat



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: A song I'm embarrassed to love., Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Canon compliant incestuous relationship, Does not end happily for anyone, F/M, So much angst, Songfic, not cersei friendly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-19 03:46:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11305035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LibKat/pseuds/LibKat
Summary: Sometimes, no matter how far you run, you just can't get away from heartbreak.





	Two Out Of Three

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: A Song of Ice and Fire, Game of Thrones and these characters belong to a whole bunch of people who are not me. I will return them undamaged when I am finished playing with them.
> 
> What I know about eradicating computer viruses comes from running Intego on my laptop. Please excuse any idiocy, if you are knowledgeable about these things.
> 
> This does not end happily. If you are looking for shiny, happy people, this is not your fic.

Gods, she hated this fucking song.

Brienne Tarth wasn’t usually much of one for vulgar language, even in her own mind, but ...

She leaned against the bar, abandoning the lemon she had been sectioning. It wouldn’t be long now.

Jorah Mormont came back from the jukebox and picked up his third double of the night.

 _Three. Two. One_.

“Why, Brienne? Why doesn’t she love me? Why did she send me away?”

Jorah normally had the kind of deep, soulful voice that you’d be happy to listen to if he was just reading the phone book, especially if he was doing it in your bed. But he could whine like a two year old when he’d been drinking. And he’d been drinking for a week, all to the tune of Brienne’s least favorite, overwrought, over-orchestrated power ballad torch song.

Brienne grabbed onto her patience and held tight. Her answers weren’t any different than the last twenty times.

“I don’t know why, Jorah. Maybe because her husband only died a year ago and she’s still grieving. Maybe because you were Drogo’s friend and that’s the only way she thinks of you. Maybe you pushed too hard for something she isn’t ready to give.”

 _Maybe because you're old enough to be her father’s much older brother._ Brienne wasn’t quite exasperated enough to say that out loud.

Most nights Brienne didn’t mind her job. It hadn’t been her life plan to end up tending bar in Pentos’s only pub catering to Northern Westerosi ex-pats and tourists who were escaping the cold for sun and sandy beaches but suddenly missing home. But bartending paid the bills, the tips weren’t bad and the regulars were usually a pretty mellow, if melancholy bunch. But Northerners tended to be obsessive. And Jorah’s current obsession, besides the pretty, young widow he’d been pursuing, was that fucking song.

The bar’s owner, Illyrio, had an endless supply of old fashioned 45s featuring the slightly depressive, working class rock that seemed to appeal to drunk and maudlin Northern sensibilities. If Brienne managed to pry the jukebox open and smash the record to bits, odds were he had another copy stashed and would replace it before her next shift behind the bar.

Maybe she should just kill Jorah and put them both out of his misery.

But it wasn't Jorah’s fault that hearing that fucking song was a trip down memory lane to the worst best year of her life.

 

                                                                                 ***

Five years before…

The marketing division’s lights were dimmed and the offices looked deserted in the evening gloom. Brienne stepped off the elevator and moved quickly toward the largest office on the floor.

“Thank the gods the jackasses have cleared out.” She said, not as quietly as she meant to.

“Not quite all the jackasses are gone.”

Startled Brienne juggled the equipment she was carrying, barely managing to hold on.

The big corner office was still occupied. Slumped on the leather couch, just out of view from the main room’s cubical farm, was the handsomest man she had ever seen. Brienne had seen him in photos of course. His picture graced the wall of the lobby, just under the portrait of his father. He was a staple of the business pages and the gossip rags.

How was he more gorgeous in person, even after what must have been a day from the deepest of the hells for him? His hair showed tracks of his hands running through it repeatedly, but was perfection in its messiness. His posture spoke of exhaustion, but his skin glowed golden and his green eyes compelled her gaze. His clothes, wrinkled and stained from the long and disastrous workday, outlined a body chiseled by the Warrior to conquer nations and maidens as he liked.

Brienne untied her tongue. “I’m sorry, Ser. I didn’t see you there.”

“Of course not. The leader of the jackasses was hiding in shame. I guess you know who I am. My name _is_ on the door, and on the building. But who are you and what are you doing here?”

“I’m an IT tech.”

“And does a tech have a name or are the Faceless Men branching out into computer repair?”

“Brienne. Brienne Tarth.” Feeling flustered made Brienne even more terse than usual.

“Well, Brienne Brienne Tarth, is the whole of IT cursing my name day or are the hourly staff gleefully anticipating all the overtime pay they’re racking up because my division is lousy with idiot frat boys?”

“Everyone in IT is working hard, Ser. The Sand Snake virus is a nasty one. It’s very hard to eradicate.”

He grimaced. “Nasty in more ways than one, Brienne Brienne. At one point every desk in the building was rocking with the orgasmic stylings of Obara Sand. How the hells did the virus turn the volume up to eleven on every computer?”

Brienne felt her blush turn up to twelve. There was hard core porn and then there were the Sand Snakes. Whoever had combined their greatest hits reel with an insidious worm that spread and took over every computer on a network, revealing itself in one simultaneous crescendo, he was both an evil genius and a really sick bastard.

“Good gods, Brienne Brienne, I haven’t seen a red that bright since the last time I was in the Great Hall at Casterly Rock. Take some breaths, wench or you’ll spontaneously combust before you get half my computers working again.”

Crossing to the massive mahogany desk and its very nice tech set up (way better than what the peons in IT got), Brienne did take some deep breaths and tried to get her pulse under control. She was going to be dealing with horribly embarrassing stuff all night while she scrubbed the computers in Marketing. If she didn’t get all the blood out of her cheeks and recirculating through her body she just might pass out.

“Clearing all these systems will take me hours, Ser. There’s no need for you to stay. I’m sure you have better things to do with your evening.”

“Not according to my father, I don’t. It was those idiots in my division surfing WesterPorn during business hours who downloaded the damned virus. It’s been made clear to me that it’s my responsibility to see that the infection is eradicated. Until the last little byte is clean as a septa’s virgin pussy.”

Brienne gasped. “Ser, there’s no reason for more vulgarity. I may have to suffer through the Sand Snakes, but I don’t have to listen to that kind of talk from you.”

He scrubbed his hands roughly over his face and took some deep breaths of his own. “Look, Brienne Brienne. It’s been a bitch of a day between the porn blaring and the multiple visits to my father’s office. I’m pretty damned worn out. But the last thing I need is for you to feel harassed by my “vulgarity”. I’ll try to be more a jackass than an asshole if you’ll cut me a little slack.”

“You’ll probably require more than a little slack, Ser.” Brienne muttered as she powered up his system in safe mode.

“The knighthood was a long time ago. Please stop calling me “Ser”. My name is …”

Loud guttural moans and _slurping_ noises burst from the office’s surround sound as the system finished booting.

His face went back into his hands. “That wasn’t my fault, Brienne Brienne. I did not purposely leave it there.”

Working hard to at least get the speaker volume lowered, Brienne chuffed a laugh at him. “This is about 10 minutes into the continuous loop we’ve been dealing with for hours. I’m almost immune at this point.”

“That’s not what your blush is saying. Now don’t give me that death glare, wench. If we can’t laugh about this, it’s going to be a very long night.”

Brienne worked her way through the department’s computers rooting out all the traces of the virus, booting and powering down, scrubbing again and again until they were, well, as clean as a septa’s private parts. He stuck around through all of it, teasing, distracting her to break her tension when things got to be too much.  He asked questions and dropped comments, some bawdy, some incisive. He insisted that she take the breaks to rest her eyes and clear her mind. He offered to order dinner and laughed when she said she'd eat anything but Dornish.

He turned out to be easy for Brienne to talk to, once she got over being stunned by his looks. They chatted about everything and nothing that night, all night. Brienne was surprised by all the interests they had in common, though their outsides couldn’t have been more different.

It was the wee hours of the morning when only three more of Marketing’s computers remained, the three used by the staff members who imported the virus in the first place.

Brienne looked at the first of them.

“Whose system was this?” She asked.

“That belonged to jackass one, also known as Ron Connington.” He pointed to the next cubicle in the row and then to one across the aisle. “That’s jackass two, Mark Mullendore and finally jackass three, Ben Bushy. You won’t be surprised to learn they no longer work here. No don’t sit on that chair. You might catch an STD from it.”

“If no one needs these computers, I think I’ll just pull them completely and take them down to IT.”

“You may have to send them to a toxic waste dump. I don’t think there’s any data on them that's worth touching those keyboards without a hazmat suit. Not a one of those jackasses did any worthwhile work the whole time they were here. I don’t know why I had to keep them on as long as I did, even if their references from Highgarden were excellent.”

“They came over with the Highgarden acquisition?” Enlightenment dawned for Brienne.

“That seems to mean something to you, Brienne Brienne.”

“Loras Tyrell ran marketing for Highgarden. He and his sister weren't happy when their dad sold out to LannisCorp so soon after Lady Olenna died. They wanted to run the company themselves. It figures Loras would saddle you with some of his dead weight just out of spite.”

“You know the Tyrells, Brienne Brienne?”

“I knew Renly Baratheon a little. If you knew Renly, you knew Loras. Although to know Loras is not necessarily to love Loras. We lost touch after …” Brienne’s throat closed up and she couldn’t continue.

“After Renly was murdered.” He completed the sentence for her.

“Yes, that.”

He saw her distress. “Renly was my good brother’s brother. He was a lightweight and a peacock with terrible taste in men, but he was a good guy. I miss him.”

“So do I.” Brienne shook her head to throw off the sadness that accompanied thoughts of Renly. “Well, if I don’t have to work on these last three computers, I think we’re done.”

“And I only have to be back in … “ He checked the wafer thin watch on his wrist. “Gods, four hours. I don’t know about you, my dear IT wench, but I'd barely make it home before I had to turn right around and come back. I know a great all night diner that makes the best pancakes in town. How about I treat you to a very early breakfast in recognition of the noble battle we’ve waged in our own personal version of the Long Night?”

“First my name is Brienne, not _wench_ or _Brienne Brienne_. I may have to take guff from you here in the office, given our relative positions in the company hierarchy, but I wouldn’t be so tolerant at breakfast. Second, I’ve been wearing the same clothes for 24 hours and I desperately need to shower off the Sand Snakes fug before I start another workday. Third, does this diner make waffles, which are by far the superior breakfast dish?”

“Going in reverse order, _wench_ , since we’re still in the office where my superiority is unchallenged, yes the diner does make big fluffy Riverlands style waffles that you can drown in butter and syrup or fruit and real whipped cream, if you like that kind of thing. Though obviously fruit, in the form of blueberries, is meant to go in pancakes, the better in every way breakfast treat. After breakfast you can shower in the company gym. My assistant can stop at a store on her way to work and pick up any necessaries you need to make your workday more pleasant: toothbrush, fresh shirt, clean small clothes, whatever. She’s already picking up a few things for me and there are stores close to my condo. It won’t be couture, but at least you won't feel tainted by the Sand Snakes. Finally, I know your name, I simply choose not to use it. Your eyes sparkle so delightfully when you’re annoyed”

                                                                           ***

After that first long night, Brienne started encountering him a couple nights a week at the company gym. After spotting for one another on the free weights, it felt natural to go out to get something to eat after. They were both fanatics about baseball, though they supported rival teams. Weekend afternoons at her cozy neighborhood pub to watch games together just sort of happened. They both liked loud, effects laden action and sci-fi movies. Thursday night premieres … well if they were each going anyway they might as well keep each other company in line and share the really big tub of popcorn.

It was during a heated argument over Trek vs Wars that he kissed her the first time.

Once they started _seeing_ one another, as opposed to just hanging out, his only request was that they stay under the radar for a while and she agreed with some relief. The vast differences in their circumstances: in the company organization chart, in wealth and social status, and, yes, in attractiveness made Brienne self conscious even after she stopped waiting to be the punch line of the joke she was half afraid he was playing on her.

Staying out of the public eye meant long hours really getting to know one another. She’d always imagined him as spoiled, too rich and too handsome to have ever known pain, fawned over by women in droves. When she made a joke about how his little black book was dealing with the time he spent with her, he revealed that she couldn’t have been more wrong. He’d spent a long time in a toxic relationship that had messed him up more than he could begin to express. It had been over for a couple years, but he still bore scars, emotional and literal. He wouldn’t talk about any specifics. He had a shrink for help with the ugly details. But Brienne came to understand that in many ways he was almost as insecure and inexperienced as she was.

The first time Brienne found him listening to that fucking song was in his office at the end of a long workday. He’d had the dreaded, hours long quarterly executive meeting with his father and the rest of his family. She’d been stuck all day uploading patches to an operating system upgrade. She just wanted to pick up some take out and swap shoulder rubs.

Lit only by the task lamp on his desk, he slumped down, resting his head on his arms in a pose of utter exhaustion. That fucking song played quietly in the background, the singer’s voice rising to a wail on the chorus.

Brienne called his name softly, not wanting to disturb him if he’d drifted off. Meetings with his family were grueling and she’d have been happy to wait for him if he needed a nap.

He startled, his hand hitting the trackpad and cueing up a different song, a raucous rocker that they both loved.

Rising from his desk he drew her into his arms, locking his office door behind her.

“Thank the gods you’re here.” He murmured as his lips caressed her ear. “What an awful fucking day it’s been. Knowing I’d see you tonight was the only thing that kept me from killing people. I need you, wench. I need you so fucking much.”

They were still more than half dressed when he bent her over that glossy mahogany desk, drove his cock into her and set an almost punishing pace. There had always been an undercurrent of tenderness in him before, no matter their urgency. He'd always demanded, at some point, to look into her “astonishing” eyes. Not this time. Even though Brienne managed to come before he finished, it was the first time with him that she didn’t feel satisfied. Brienne had no idea how to talk to him about it.

Their relationship continued on as before, but Brienne was never quite as comfortable with everything. She even dropped some hints about progressing, maybe going public, at least in some small ways.

“Tyrion always comes on IT's Friday night pub crawl. No one would think anything of it if you showed up with him.”

“You don’t have to quit the softball team because I’m joining it. Nobody’s going to jump from you shagging flys to you shagging me.”

“I got an award as best new employee of the year. You couldn’t even stop by my table at the banquet and congratulate me? What the hells?”

That fucking song appeared a few more times, when, for no reason he would discuss, he got sullen and quiet, tight around the mouth and eyes. Brienne would wake in the middle of the night and find the space next to her empty and cold. If she went to the bedroom door, she would see him sitting on her couch, cradling his phone in his hand and that fucking song, faintly familiar, drifting down the hall toward her. She never called his name. She didn't get up after that first time. She would lay back down and hug her pillow, fighting tears for some reason she wouldn’t name, even to herself. After an hour or so he always came back to her bed, put her on her hands and knees and fucked her as if his life depended on it.

Yes, he wanted her. He showed it over and over. That kind of passion couldn’t be faked.

Yes, he needed her. He’d say deep, desperate stuff to her out of nowhere. That she gave him hope. She was his light in the darkness. With her, he felt like he could be the man he was supposed to be.

He did change in the time they were together. He became calmer, more thoughtful, less likely to bite someone’s head off or shred them with sarcasm.

Brienne was feeling changed too. Her normal equilibrium had deserted her. Sometimes she felt dizzy with the depth of her feelings. Sometimes she felt cherished and special. Sometimes she felt like a nag. Sometimes she felt like a convenient hole for his cock. Most of all she felt like she was falling and he was standing above her on the cliff, watching her plummet all by herself. More and more she didn’t like how she felt.

She finally had to admit that fucking song wasn’t just about them. It was about _them_. Him and the “toxic” lover he couldn’t let go off. The one, Brienne realized, who was standing between them, keeping him from closing that last little space and give himself completely.

She gave serious thought to breaking up with him. When she missed her period and started feeling queasy in the morning, it might have just been stress. But it was definitely time for a come-to-R’hllor talk. They were approaching their first anniversary as a couple. That would be a logical time to evaluate where they were and where they thought they were going. If that talk went well, she’d pee on a stick and they'd plan a future based on the outcome. If it went badly, she’d end things and then eat all the ice cream in the freezer. She’d figure out the rest once the sugar coma wore off.

She rushed home that Friday night to put together a special meal, slipped on her sexiest small clothes, put an unopened pregnancy test in the bathroom and waited. When he was an hour late, she forced down some of the over cooked, dried out dinner she’d made. At two hours late, she was frantically calling and texting to see if he was alright. He finally showed up almost three hours late, still dressed for work, apologizing about a meeting that ran long and he couldn't interrupt it to call her. He wouldn’t meet her eyes.

He was two steps away from her open arms when she saw it, a hickey blossoming just below his jawline. Brienne would never have marked him there. Someone might notice it and ask questions.

Brienne had never believed the term “heartbreak”. But the pain was so great it felt as if her heart had just been torn apart.

She couldn’t stop herself. She lashed out and hit him so hard it knocked him off his feet. As he fell Brienne caught the whiff of perfume on him. A heavy, spicy scent that she recognized from around the office. A scent that had accompanied some of the cruelest, ugliest insults that had ever been thrown at her.

“Her?!!! All this time it’s been Cersei! Your sister!” She screamed at him. “The two of you must have had such a good laugh at the ugly aurochs and her stupid little fantasies about romance and happily ever after.”

Her stomach revolted. She vomited on him while he lay stunned on the floor, retching out all her hopes and dreams in one stream of vile foulness.

She felt empty, hollowed out. Her voice was rough and low.

“I’m going to go clean up. Leave before I get done. If you’re still here I’ll call the police, or maybe The National Whisperer. You won’t like the story I’ll have for them.”

She sat for a long time on the bathroom floor, eyes dry as the Red Waste. Brienne just sat, turning the test over and over in her hands. When she finally heard the heavy slam of her front door she tossed the box back on the counter. She spent a long time cleaning up, scouring every inch of her ungainly body, washing her brittle hair, brushing her crooked teeth over and over. When she felt clean enough to face the world again, she took stock.

He’d obviously been in the bedroom. The folded laundry had been dumped out and was missing the jeans and t shirt he’d left last weekend. There was a wash cloth in the kitchen sink. His suit and a lot of paper towels were stuffed in the trash. She pulled out the garbage bag and added the fancy panties and bra she’d put on for him when she still had hope. She threw the unopened pregnancy test in before she tied the bag off.

Brienne went through her apartment meticulously, cleaning all trace of him. She gathered up the other things he had left there. Picked up the little gifts he had given her, some souvenirs of special times with him. It barely filled a second garbage bag and there was nothing of any real value. Everything went into the dumpster, along with all the bedding they'd used, that carried the memory of the warmth of his skin. Getting the mattress and box spring down to the trash was difficult, but not impossible for someone of her size and strength.

She felt calmer once those things were out of her place. She gathered up her laptop and tablet. She packed up the clothes that she loved: her jeans, sweats, hoodies and sweaters. She left all her work clothes and some dressier stuff that she had bought for the day when she was his publicly acknowledged girlfriend.

It turned out there was very little in her apartment that had actual meaning for her. Some photos of her family and friends, her books, a few tchotchkes. Most of it she could happily walk away from. And that’s what she did.

From a modest hotel room on the other side of town, she arranged to sublet her apartment to the son of her former thesis advisor. He could have all her furniture and the entertainment system, if they would just box up her personal items for storage and give her leftover clothes to charity.

On Saturday morning, she emailed her resignation to her boss’s boss and waited for her cell phone to ring.

“What do you want, Tyrion? I thought my email was self explanatory.”

“What the hells, Brienne? My brother shows up at my place at two in the morning, drunk out of his mind and he’s still sleeping it off. Now you send me your resignation through email on a Saturday. A message that consists only of the words ‘I quit’. What the fucking hells?”

“I’m not going to discuss this with you. Just send my last paycheck to my father’s address. It’s in my personnel file. If anyone has any complaints about me not giving two weeks notice … well, they should be glad all I'm doing is quitting without warning.”

“Brienne, for fucks sake, what happened between the two of you? Whatever boneheaded thing he did, it can be fixed. Don’t run away at the first time things get tough."

“What do you mean, Tyrion?”

“Puh-leeze. Did you really think no one knew? You two are the worst kept secret in King’s Landing. All that skulking around to out of the way restaurants and movie theaters in the 'burbs. Ignoring each other so hard when anyone was nearby that the silence was deafening. All the eye fucking when you thought nobody was looking. It would have been hilarious if you two hadn’t been so serious about it.”

All that effort. All that anxiety. She’d been a public joke anyway. Wasn’t that the cherry on her crap sundae?

“Whatever you think you know, whatever you think there was, it’s over now. There’s no going back, no fixing to be done, Tyrion. And I can’t stay here. I can’t … I won’t see him again. That’s all I’m telling you. Just let me go quietly. Because if you don’t, then I’ll go loud.”

Tyrion’s voice sharpened, lost the mocking undertone that was always present. “What do you mean, Brienne?”

“Ask you brother to tell you what happened last night. Ask him what happened to that grey Armani he was wearing when he showed up at my place hours late with a hickey on his neck, stinking of Shalimar. Ask him what he was doing. Ask him _who_ he was doing.”

“Oh, fuck.” Tyrion’s voice dropped. “I’m so sorry, Brienne. I thought that was finally done. He seemed so happy with you. That dumb sonuvabitch.”

“You knew about them, what they are to each other? And you let me stumble blindly into the middle of this, this shit storm. _You_ sonuvabitch. You are going to let me go, Tyrion, with my full salary, all my vacation pay and a good reference letter. And you are never going to call me again.”

She wished she had one of those old time phones you could slam down to hang up. Instead she settled for cutting Tyrion off mid sentence. It wasn’t enough, but it was all she had.

Then she laid on the bed and finally cried herself to sleep.

She woke several hours later with a telltale cramping in her low back. No need to buy another pregnancy test. But she would have to go out for supplies: tampons, Midol, Kleenex and lots of chocolate. And she should stop at a sept to light a candle to the Mother for having pity on her, not forcing her to a decision she was loathe to make.

She was walking back from the drug store as the afternoon bled into evening. He came out of the alley off the motel parking lot. He was so huge, how had she not noticed him.

She knew who he was: Gregor Clegane, the Lannister’s enforcer. She knew the rumors about him: ex-special forces, discharged rather than face court martial for excessive brutality, snapped up by LannisCorp to run the “security” division. He took care of all the little inconveniences that could trouble the filthy rich family, like women who know deep, dark secrets.

Brienne had always felt like she could take care of herself, but Gregor Clegane made her feel small and vulnerable. She pulled her cell out of her pocket and punched in 911 and kept her finger near the send button. He stopped coming toward her when he saw it.

“Ms. Tarth. We need to talk privately.”

“No Mr. Clegane, we’re fine right here. Out in the open. In a public parking lot. Close to a busy street.”

The motel manager came out of the office, concern etching his face.

“Do you need anything, Miss?”

Damn. Clegane had moved closer when she’d merely glanced away.

“Not right now. But I’d appreciate it if you stayed right there while I talk to this, um, gentleman.” She called out, not taking her eyes off LannisCorp’s attack dog again.

Gregor Clegane cursed under his breath. It was like rocks rumbling down a mountain side.”

“There’s no need for all this drama, Ms. Tarth. I’m just here to remind you of the nondisclosure agreement you signed when you started at LannisCorp. Be sure that agreement will be enforced to the letter.” He leaned forward and Brienne could catch a whiff of his foul breath on the evening breeze. “I’ll enjoy enforcing it, Ms. Tarth. Oh, I’ll enjoy enforcing it so much.”

Brienne shivered and took two steps back.

“However the Lannisters are not unreasonable. In recognition of your... services this past year, they would like you to have this.” He pulled a cashier’s check out of his pocket and held it out to her.

“I don’t want that. I don’t need it. Put it away and go back to where you came from. Tell the Lannisters the only thing I want is never to hear their name again.”

“I can’t do that, Ms. Tarth. I have a commission to perform. You’ll either take the check, or we’ll go have that private chat, your cell phone and that trembling asshole over there be damned.”

Brienne had never seen true madness before. She knew she was looking at it now. She gathered all the courage she could muster.

“Put the check down on the car and leave, Mr. Clegane. If I ever see you again, I won’t hesitate to call the police.”

“If I ever come after you again, Ms. Tarth, you won’t have time to dial.”

He set the check down with an unexpected delicacy and moved to leave.

Her bravado slipping away, Brienne countered every step he took, until they had circled one another and now she was next to the car and he was standing in the middle of the parking lot.

“I need to see you take the check, Brienne. There’s an obedient girl. The Lannisters send their regards.” With an awful smile that seemed to hold infinite threats, he turned and walked away.

Brienne clutched the check in her sweaty hand and tried to breathe evenly. Her knees felt weak and she leaned against the car for support.

The motel manager came to stand with her.

“Who was that, miss? He’s not going to be coming around often is he? I don’t think I want his like around my place.”

“I don’t think he’ll be back. If you do see him again, call the police. Don’t hesitate. He’s a very dangerous man.”

Brienne straightened, standing on her own two feet again. She thanked the manager for staying with her through the confrontation, went back to her room and threw all the locks. She thought about moving the dresser in front of the door, but decided it probably wasn’t heavy enough to be protection if she was wrong and Clegane came for her.

The next hours passed in a daze. Brienne mostly stared at the check, counting the many, many zeroes. She hated feeling afraid. She hated feeling bullied even more. She was Brienne Tarth and she wasn't anybody’s target any more. She might not be able to take these bullies in a straight up fight, but she had other weapons.

Brienne pulled out her computer. It was the weekend and her access to LannisCorp hadn’t been revoked yet. She trolled through files. Nothing incriminating in Tywin Lannister’s personal drive or the one shared by his two sons. She hit pay dirt in Cersei’s system. Tons of unredacted information on Clegane, including police files from the lead investigator into a series of brutal rape-murders. The crimes had been terrorizing the women of Fleabottom for several years. Cersei had been making regular payments to Det. Slynt and the file on Clegane had grown steadily larger and more disgusting.

With the sunrise on Sunday morning, Brienne copied everything she’d discovered to a thumb drive. After a nap, a shower and a power bar, she took herself to a copy center. Then she sat for a long time in a quiet park and watched the normal people go about their day.

A trip to a stationary store on Monday morning acquired a Manila mailing envelope and a gift box and wrapping paper that looked like the packaging used by the top jewelry store in Westeros. She returned to the park and took a leisurely walk around. Once she was back in her room, she put all the evidence against Clegane in the envelope and addressed it to a muckraking reporter who had been gunning for the Lannisters for years.

She took the check Clegane had forced on her, placed it carefully in the full baggie of dog shit she had picked up in the park and wrapped it up beautifully in the fancy gift box.

On her way out of town, Brienne stopped by a messenger service. She paid extra to have both packages hand delivered immediately, emphasizing particularly that the box needed to be put directly in Cersei Lannister-Baratheon’s hands at that day’s executive meeting. It contained something of a value equal to her own.

Then she bricked her cell phone and put King’s Landing in her rear view mirror.

Brienne was in the Riverlands when the news broke of Gregor Clegane’s arrest and subsequent suspicious death while in custody. She breathed a sigh of relief for herself and for the all the women of King’s Landing. Everyone was a little safer with Gregor Clegane put down.

She made her way up north to BeyondtheWall. She’d been on a rafting trip up there right before she started her job at LannisCorp. There’d been an accident during the trip and she’d impressed the owners with her coolheaded helpfulness in the crisis. They’d offered her a job and Brienne impulsively decided to see if the offer was still good all these months later.

Brienne spent 3 years at Shadow Tower Adventure Tours. She split her time between doing all their computer work and working as a guide. At the start of the third year, she decided she needed to put herself out there again. She had recovered enough that she no longer looked at every blond man hoping and dreading that it was he. That was irrevocably over. She’d changed her phone and email but she wasn't in witness protection. If he’d cared enough, he could have found her. So he must have been perfectly happy committing incest with his twin and finding other gullible women to act as his beards. It was time for her to complete moving on.

She started dating a local, the owner of the small town’s only pub. He was popular with everyone, very funny and strangely sweet. Brienne felt like she spent more time working behind the bar, learning the business than actually dating him. After a few months she figured out that Tormund was already planning their future, married, working together, going up to the apartment over the bar at the end of the night to the life they were going to share together. Brienne knew that was never going to happen and she wasn’t going to string him along when she couldn’t reciprocate his feelings. _She_ would never do that to someone else. She broke it off and Tormund didn't take it well. The town sided with him, their native son, when things got messy and Brienne decided it was time to make another change.

She drove as far south as south goes and then she went a little farther. Essos was as big a change as she could make and still be on the same planet. She worked some odd jobs around Pentos, did some freelance IT work and started building a clientele. But it wasn't enough yet to pay the bills, so she did her shifts at The Weirwood, where she understood the accents and the manners of the patrons. And she encountered Jorah and his melancholy obsession with that fucking song.

                                                                              ***

  
He played it one more time as she closing up. He downed the last dregs of his drink and was out the door as the final chorus started.

“I want you.  
I need you.  
But there ain’t no way  
I’m ever gonna love you.  
Now don’t be sad.  
Cause two out of three…”

Brienne yanked the plug out of the wall, silencing the juke box.

When you’ve fallen fathoms deep and your lover hasn't, two out of three is the worst thing in the world.

  
____________________________________________________________________________

  
Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad – Lyrics by Jim Steinman, Performed by Meat Loaf

  
Baby we can talk all night  
But that ain't getting us nowhere  
I told you everything I possibly can  
There's nothing left inside of here

And maybe you can cry all night  
But that'll never change the way that I feel  
The snow is really piling up outside  
I wish you wouldn't make me leave here

I poured it on and I poured it out  
I tried to show you just how much I care  
I'm tired of words and I'm too hoarse to shout  
But you've been cold to me so long  
I'm crying icicles instead of tears

And all I can do is keep on telling you  
I want you  
I need you  
But there ain't no way  
I'm ever gonna love you  
Now don't be sad  
'Cause two out of three ain't bad  
Now don't be sad  
'Cause two out of three ain't bad

You'll never find your gold on a sandy beach  
You'll never drill for oil on a city street  
I know you're looking for a ruby  
In a mountain of rocks  
But there ain't no Coupe de Ville hiding  
At the bottom of a Cracker Jack box

I can't lie  
I can't tell you that I'm something I'm not  
No matter how I try  
I'll never be able to give you something  
Something that I just haven't got

There's only one girl that I will ever love  
And that was so many years ago  
And though I know I'll never get her out of my heart  
She never loved me back, ooh I know  
Well I remember how she left me on a stormy night  
Oh she kissed me and got out of our bed  
And though I pleaded and I begged her  
Not to walk out that door  
She packed her bags and turned right away

And she kept on telling me  
She kept on telling me  
She kept on telling me  
I want you  
I need you  
But there ain't no way  
I'm ever gonna love you  
Now don't be sad  
'Cause two out of three ain't bad

I want you  
I need you  
But there ain't no way  
I'm ever gonna love you  
Now don't be sad  
'Cause two out of three ain't bad  
Now don't be sad  
'Cause two out of three ain't bad

Baby we can talk all night  
But that ain't getting us nowhere

 

**Author's Note:**

> You don’t really need to read this note. It just contains random natterings I wanted to get out of my brain. This story kind of messed with my head.
> 
> This fic was quite a departure for me. My writing tends to the light and humorous. Also I don’t tend to imagine modern AUs where Jaime and Cersei have had a sexual relationship. They're all manner of messed up, given their family dynamics, but they don't cross that final line. 
> 
> Other authors have written that modern incestuous relationship very well, so I’m not slagging on them in any way or denying sibling incest exists in the modern world. But I don't usually see the same circumstances from the books (and show) existing in a modern AU which would lead to Cersei and Jaime’s sexual relationship.
> 
> The lessening of the incest taboo from the Targaryen era would probably not exist. Strict primogeniture and the resulting female disempowerment has weakened significantly in western civilization. Cersei could find plenty of strong female role models to show her she had greater value (and more weapons) than what lay between her legs, even with Tywin Lannister as her father. 
> 
> Most modern children wouldn't experience the isolation from their peer group that made the twins each other's only outlet for companionship, comfort and affection, control, dominance and submission. Instead Cersei would probably be the ultimate mean girl with lots of minions to rule over and satisfy her need for power.
> 
> Given the differences I don’t think Cersei, the dominant twin, would have felt a desperate enough need to exercise her power through sexually and emotionally dominating Jaime. And I don't think there is any doubt in canon that Cersei drove that relationship.
> 
> Your mileage may differ on this issue. I’m not trying to provoke anyone. I’m just explaining why this fic still feels weird to me even though it sprang pretty much fully formed from one song on the radio.
> 
> I’m not sure why I decided that Jaime’s name would never be used in the fic. Maybe it’s because Brienne using his name is such an important development in their canon relationship and I didn't want to tarnish it.


End file.
